Make your marriage stronger

Eli Finkel,[i] a professor of social psychology at Northwestern University says that “Marriage today is, in some senses, better, and in other senses worse than it’s ever been.” He adds, “The best marriages today appear to be better than the best marriages we have ever seen —that humans have ever seen. At the same time, the average marriage is actually a bit worse today than it was a generation or two ago.” According to this marriage researcher, we’re living at a time when people see it as an “all or nothing marriage.” In other words, people want their spouses to be their best friends, someone who encourages them to be better, and to meet all their needs. The problem is that the more people expect of their marriages, the more likely that these marriages can’t live up to expectations.

An additional problem is that the demands of life today can make marriage seem like a tough endeavor. We even hear experts say things like, “marriage takes hard work.” As Finkel explains, “We’re spending more time at work, more time with our children doing intensive parenting. And then in the middle comes this problem of there’s not enough time for each other.”

However, having high hopes doesn’t mean that your marriage will fail. Finkel provides three tips to keep a marriage strong:

Write it up — Three times a year, for seven minutes, you should write down your disagreements as if you’re an impartial third person looking at your relationship. This adds up to only 21 minutes a year; it doesn’t require a great deal of time.

Talking it out — Communicate with your spouse regularly. Listen to them, tell him/her what you understood them to say, and respond.